“Hasbro CEO delivers MIPCOM keynote”
What’s MIPCOM, you ask? Per Wikipedia:
MIPCOM is a media content related event which is held in the town of Cannes once every year, normally in October. It is the same location as the world famous Cannes Film Festival.
It is essentially a content event for co-producing, buying, selling, financing and distributing entertainment content. It provides the people involved in the TV, film, digital and audiovisual content, production and distribution industry a market conference and networking forum to discover future trends and trade content rights on a global level.
MIPCOM along with MIPTV are the world’s biggest entertainment market and trade event in the entertainment industry with over $10 billion in transactional business done between MIPCOM in October and MIPTV in April.
$10 billion. That’s a lot of money. So in this fast-changing world of entertainment, who did MIPCOM choose to deliver their keynote address? Per Hollywood Reporter:
There was no toying around on Tuesday in Cannes as execs from across the globe heard president and CEO of toy and game powerhouse Hasbro Brian Goldner give a MIPCOM keynote focusing on “Becoming a Branded Play Company.”
Hasbro’s current big screen blockbuster “Transformers” is a fitting metaphor for the company that has transformed itself from a toy company to a $4 billion leader in family entertainment.
“Becoming a Branded Play Company.” And you thought Hasbro just made games and toys.
Goldner took audience members on a time travel trip from Hasbro’s first branded entertainment, a televised Mr. Potatohead commercial in 1952, to its acquisition of Milton Bradley in the 1980s to become a billion-dollar company and then reinventing its brands in the 1990s and today.
“Brands don’t get tired. People get tired,” Goldner said of Habro’s need to constantly reinvent itself as a global brand.
And by “reinvention,” we’re pretty much talking about developing pre-existing brands so they can be launched on different platforms like, say, movies?
The company’s subsidiary Hasbro Studios is also aggressively taking on the big screen with several films based on Hasbro properties in various stages of development. The “Transformers” feature film grossed $700 million worldwide in 2007, and this summer’s releases “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and “G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra” were also huge boxoffice successes. “You have to have great stories and great characters first and foremost. What you do with them is up to you,” Goldner said of the move from toy to theater. Hasbro Studios will focus on online, TV, digital and film and will develop programs based on Hasbro brands in addition to original content. “We are open for business,” Goldner said.
Oh, I’ll bet you are, Mr. Goldner. What with Hollywood movie studios sucker-punching each other as they scramble to snare the film rights to toys, games, and action figures.
For more on MIPCOM, you can go to their website here.